


love is a curse

by skyekingsleigh



Category: The Man From U.N.C.L.E. (2015)
Genre: Alternate Universe, Angst with a Happy Ending, Fluff and Angst, Hogwarts AU, Homophobia, M/M, Magic, Quidditch, but it gets better, gryffindor!illya, seeker!napollya, slytherin!napoleon, they go through a ton of shit
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-01-31
Updated: 2020-01-31
Packaged: 2021-02-25 08:48:15
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Rape/Non-Con
Chapters: 1
Words: 10,675
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/22493329
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/skyekingsleigh/pseuds/skyekingsleigh
Summary: “Do you want to sneak into the kitchens and eat éclairs with me? I know you love those.” Napoleon suggests, and Illya never stood a chance, did he?-a hogwarts au
Relationships: Illya Kuryakin/Napoleon Solo
Comments: 14
Kudos: 173





	love is a curse

**Author's Note:**

> this...really wasn't supposed to be 10k but it got kinda out of hand lol. warning for non-con, homophobic slurs and plenty of angst.

Year one:

Illya first sees him boarding the Hogwarts Express, his American accent getting all the attention immediately. He looks at the new student’s slightly curled black hair, blue eyes filled with mischief, pale skin, and he thinks: he couldn’t be more different compared to him. He’s sat alone in a cabin, slumped and stoic and carrying the weight of the world in his eleven-year old shoulders. Meanwhile, students flock the American left and right, and he just stood there in the middle with a charming smile and an entirely relaxed stance. Illya couldn’t understand how someone could be so comfortable in such a different environment, how someone could stand there under scrutiny and still manage a smile. He couldn’t understand Napoleon Solo, so Illya decides pretty early on to steer clear off him.

Some kids know Illya for all the wrong reasons. He hears his surname muttered about three times in different levels of fear and disgust as he walks the great hall following the herd of new students, but he keeps his gaze down his shoes and acts like he doesn’t care. He’s already accepted that he is to spend his whole life being overshadowed by his father’s name and betrayal. He tries not to stare too hard when the American gets called up front, and tries to ignore the cheers from the Slytherin table when he makes his way over to his new house. When the sorting hat puts Illya into Gryffindor, he’s met with scattered applause and reluctant stares. He hides his trembling fingers in his pocket and sits at the very end of the long table, away from everybody.

By the end of the first week, everyone mutters Napoleon’s name in the halls, but it’s for all the right reasons.

They first meet officially in flying class. It’s the only class that Gryffindor shares with Slytherin, and Illya barely manages to comprehend why it would be such a big deal before he’s floating two feet in the air. His eyes widen and he grips his burrowed broom tighter until he’s steadily hovering above the ground. He looks around and sees that only him and Solo have managed to fly, but the American looks sickeningly pale and all wrong. Napoleon looks up, and that’s when their eyes meet.

“I’m sort of afraid of heights,” he confesses with an embarrassed chuckle, and for a moment Illya is struck by how strong his American accent is, and then he feels blinded by his white smile. He finds his heart beating strangely in his chest, but he ignores it.

“We’re three feet up in air, Cowboy,” he rasps out. “Not exactly what I would call high.”

He doesn’t know where the nickname came from, but the minute it left his mouth, a new smile takes up Napoleon’s face, looking far more real than any charming ones Illya has seen him give out to everybody. Illya almost smiles back, too, but their professor calls their attention before he could tell his lips to respond in kind. Napoleon smiles at him one more time before they parted ways, and Illya’s heart acts strangely throughout the day afterwards.

Year two:

Napoleon joins him in the train cabin the next year. He did it so nonchalantly, too, as if sitting with Illya had been planned for months and that it was nothing out of the ordinary. He’s wearing a navy jumper that makes his eyes look grey instead of blue, and he plops on the seat in front of Illya with ease, even bringing out a book to read. Illya stares at him with his mouth slightly open the whole time.

“What are you doing?” He finally asks after ten minutes of silence.

Napoleon looks at him and immediately drops the pretense of reading in favor of smiling wholeheartedly at him. “Well, I _was_ reading before you interrupted me.”

He frowns. “I meant, what are you doing here?” _With me_ , he adds in his head.

“We hardly saw each other last year, and the one time we actually talked, you called me ‘Cowboy,’” He explains as if that answers Illya’s question.

“So?”

Napoleon sighs exasperatedly. “So, I need to actually get to know you so I could come up with your nickname.”

Illya frowns again and opens his mouth to protest, but the door to their cabin slides open and a brunette girl steps inside.

“Good, there’s still room for me,” she sighs in relief with an accent Illya can’t quite place, and drops next to Napoleon. “I’m Gaby, year two transeree.”

Already, the two practical strangers in front of him start to converse, Napoleon trying hard to include Illya every time. He doesn’t talk to them, merely steals Napoleon’s discarded book and reads it instead. He ignores the spark of annoyance at the girl’s presence, though it somehow doubles when she’s put in Slytherin and Napoleon welcomes her to the house table with a wide grin and a side hug. Illya keeps his eyes off them even if his hands tremble with the need to look, and forgets to return the book to Napoleon.

Year two was already better than the last. His house mates had started to accept him, calls him by his first name instead of his father’s. The ones who still do lost the disgusted tone in their voices, and they start to defend him from the other students, now, as well. He still doesn’t have people around him he could trust and call his friends, but he can carry a small conversation now without his fingers nervously tapping against his trousers. He calls it progress.

Illya doesn’t speak to Napoleon much, but the American seems to have forgotten about him, anyway. He’s always with Gaby, now, laughing loudly as they skip the hallways with their arms hooked together. Sometimes their eyes would meet and Napoleon would nod in acknowledgement, but Illya rarely nods back. He tells himself he doesn’t need him, anyway, even if there’s a small part of him in that train cabin that had _hoped_ the minute Napoleon entered and joined him. He’s learned by now that hope is a weakness, and Illya would be damned if he had another thing people could use against him.

Two months into the school year, Illya tries out for the quidditch team, and he becomes seeker. News of both Slytherin and Gryffindor having second year seekers spreads across Hogwarts, but of course they mostly talk about Napoleon, whose mum had been the first female seeker in Ilvermony history.

Napoleon approaches him two weeks before their first match, just before he could enter the Great Hall for breakfast. He’s leaning against one of the columns near the doors, chatting with Gaby and another Slytherin student Illya couldn’t name, but he perks up at the sight of him. “Illya!”

Sometimes he forgets that Napoleon probably knows his name, by now. He probably even knows about his father, even if he _is_ from America. It doesn’t take a genius to figure out that something might be wrong with the way more than a few students disliked Illya the previous year. Napoleon has probably asked around. Still, the sound of his name coming from the American’s lips surprised him, and he represses the shudder that threatens to wrack his body for reasons still unknown to him.

“So you made seeker, huh?” Napoleon says. Illya waits for the snide tone, or even a hint of bitterness that surely would coat his voice, but it doesn’t come. He just sounds genuinely curious, and even glad. “Guess we’ll be enemies from now on, then.”

He doesn’t know why, but his eyes are fixed on a stray curl falling in front of Napoleon’s forehead, so he tells him this instead: “Your hair is on your face, Cowboy.”

Napoleon scrunches his nose up in dismay, reaching up to tuck the curl back in place and grumbles, “Yeah, it’s been getting too unmanageable lately.”

“I thought you were afraid of heights.”

“I was,” Cowboy admits. “Spent all summer on a broom and eventually got over it.”

Illya hums, and then turns to walk away. Before he could get further, Napoleon calls out yet again.

“Illya!” He turns around if only to acknowledge the American. “You’re Russian, right?”

He nods in affirmation, but not without a curious frown on his lips.

“Do you plan on kicking my ass on our first game?” Napoleon is grinning by now. Illya doesn’t like the way something tugs at his stomach at the sight, so he just shrugs in response. “ _Peril_ doesn’t sound too bad a nickname, doesn’t it?”

“Whatever helps you sleep at night, Cowboy.”

“I’ll see you on the field, then, Peril.” Napoleon looks too happy at the name he came up with, so Illya rolls his eyes as an attempt at indifference. His heart is beating strangely again, he notes, but he tucks away that observation for much later, when he is the only one awake at night, and he hopes the sound of his roommates’ snores would be distraction enough.

Their first game was a disaster.

A bludger almost hits Napoleon three times, and that’s only on the first fifteen minutes. Illya spots the snitch first, but Napoleon is smaller and lighter, so he leads the race. When they’re finally head to head, Illya–on a momentary lapse of judgment–allows himself to hope. With both their arms outstretched in front of them, it’s easy to see Napoleon’s chances get slimmer. Illya has longer limbs; he could practically feel the flaps of the snitch’s wings against the tips of his middle finger. _So close_. And then Napoleon ducks out of nowhere, and suddenly Illya’s falling, down, down, the cheers in the stands a distant roar, down, down, and then he’s not.

Napoleon hovers a few feet above him, face panic-striken, one hand pointing his wand towards Illya. He floats in the air, hears his broom fall beneath him, but his eyes are fixed on the golden snitch clutched tightly in Napoleon’s other hand, glinting and taunting, even as the both of them slowly made their descent. His knees wobble when he reaches the grass, a show of weakness, and he starts to hate himself somewhere between the loud cheers from the Slytherin stand and the way Napoleon’s team lifts him up to show off the snitch, the screams getting louder. If he had stayed longer, he would have seen Napoleon glance around to look for him in concern, but he disappeared long before then.

The game was all everyone could talk about the next few days. Napoleon’s name gets thrown around along with words such as ‘hero’ and ‘the best seeker,’ so Illya allows himself a little hatred for the American as well, because he doesn’t need saving, and he certainly doesn’t need a hero. He feels weak, and incompetent, and undeserving of his role in his team. His fingers start trembling again whenever someone talks to him, and Illya decides that yes, he’s definitely allowed to feel more than a little hatred for Napoleon.

It’s two weeks after when Napoleon finds him in the library reading Russian literature. He sits across Illya with a frown on his face, and before he could say something, Napoleon greets him with this: “Do you hate me?”

“What?” He asks in surprise.

Napoleon bites at his lower lip nervously. “It’s just that Gaby says you’ve been glaring at me ever since the game, so I started to pay more attention and you _have_ been glaring at me. Do you hate me?”

Illya can’t think of a better answer, so he asks instead, “Am I not allowed to?”

“Peril, you know that you falling was just an accident, right?” Napoleon says frustratingly. Illya allows himself a closer look, and he sees that for the first time since he’s met Napoleon, his red and gold necktie is crooked, his hair a mess, and his school uniform un-tucked from his trousers. He wonders, briefly, if he had been the cause of the American’s distress, but he shoves the thought away immediately.

“Why does it even matter to you?” Illya asks him, genuinely curious. “It’s not like we’re friends.”

“Yeah, but I want us to be.” Napoleon tells him earnestly, making Illya’s breath hitch. How long has it been since he has heard those words be said to him? No one ever wants to be his friend, not since he was ten and aurors broke into his home in Moscow and took away his father. Maybe not even before then. “Look, if I could go back in time and take that hit for you, I would–“

Illya scoffs. “Don’t be stupid–“

“–I would,” Napoleon gives him a pointed look for interrupting. “I never meant for you to get hurt. Ducking had been an impulse the second I saw the bludger. I never wanted it to hit you.”

Illya stays silent for a few seconds, enough to see into Napoleon’s emotional eyes. “We do not have access to time turners. You cannot go back in time.”

“Peril,” Napoleon whines, defeated. Illya tells himself he doesn’t like the nickname, even if it makes his stomach twist every time he hears it.

Illya sighs. “I do not hate you, Napoleon. I am merely annoyed by your presence.”

The American’s face falls at his words, shoulders slumping and eyes losing a little bit of their spark.

“What?” Illya cannot help but ask.

“You called me Napoleon.”

He quirks an eyebrow. “That is your name.”

“Yeah,” Napoleon looks down. “But you’ve never called me Napoleon before. It was always Cowboy, since the first time we talked.”

Illya’s surprised to find the black-haired boy so bothered by something as trivial as a name, and although he’d like to believe Napoleon really does annoy him, he’s surprised to find that he wasn’t annoyed, not at all. “Oh for Merlin’s sake, Cowboy, drop the theatrics. I don’t hate you. Are you happy now?”

“Very,” Napoleon answers, his stupid grin back in place.

Napoleon introduces him to Gaby more formally the next day, and before he knew it, he’s joined them in skipping the hallways, Gaby in between him and the American with her arms hooked into theirs, and he has a nickname for her too. Peril and Cowboy, though, remains exclusively for him and Napoleon.

Year 3:

Illya’s never had someone react so positively at seeing him in platform 9 ¾ before, but now he has an American boy whose hair is now sleeked back by a horrifying amount of hair potion, and a German girl who’s almost a feet shorter than him after his growth spurt over the summer.

Gaby throws herself at him, barely giving Illya a chance to brace himself. It’s a good thing he’s been practicing Quidditch the whole break and he doesn’t topple over the girl’s added weight. “Merlin, Illya, you’re a giant.”

“You’re just too small,” Napoleon counters with a roll of his eyes before throwing his arms around both Illya and Gaby’s shoulders and leads them to the train.

“Alas, Peril, I am quite annoyed at how you still managed to be taller than me. I thought I’d grown a lot this summer.”

“You did,” Illya tells him honestly. “Only I have too.”

Napoleon frowns. It crinkles his forehead a little, and Illya ignores the sudden urge to smooth it out with his thumb. Gaby tries not to give them an overtly fond smile and fails. “That’s unfair.”

“If you boys are done arguing about unbearable things,” Gaby drawls. “We do have a train to catch.”

Over the course of the next few weeks, Illya only manages to get closer to the two Slytherins. He would practice quidditch with Napoleon during their free time, and studying with Gaby in the library became routine as well. He liked talking to the chop shop girl. Gaby gave absolutely no pretenses, and she would say exactly what she wants to say, and more often than not, they were words he needed to hear, too. Illya hasn’t made any more friends in his house, but he’s more than content with what he has now. Sometimes, though, he’d be plagued with the thought of losing them–Gaby with her sharp wit and frank personality and Napoleon with his wide grin and overly made hair–sometimes he’d think of how much it would hurt him, to feel love and friendship for the first time only to lose it after. Illya’s never allowed himself to feel hope like this before, and even if he tries not to, there are times that he just knows he still can’t have nice things, only ones that would hurt him in the end.

Illya decides he likes Gaby somewhere between Care of the Magical Creatures and her sarcastic commentary throughout Slytherin’s Quidditch tryouts. They sat together in the green stands, house scarves tucked neatly around their necks to avoid the early autumn winds, and she had just made an entirely inappropriate comment about Napoleon and his broom as the American swept by them. Illya fails to contain his laughter, guffawing so loudly that even Napoleon paused mid-fly to look at them in question. Gaby seemed all too pleased with herself, leaning back against the wooden stand with a smug smile.

“Cowboy would kill you if he heard that,” he chuckles after finally getting ahold of himself. Gaby simply smiles wider, muttering ‘oh, he’d be fine’ before resuming on her commentaries, this time on the quidditch rookies.

They wait for Napoleon by the shower rooms, and Illya can’t even bring himself to feel awkward for being surrounded by green scarves, too occupied with his conversation with Gaby. He hardly even noticed Napoleon standing a few feet away from them, freshly showered with a frown marring his pale face. It was only when Illya laughs too loudly yet again that the American decided to cut them off.

“Thanks for watching and waiting for me,” he grins, and if Illya paid enough attention, he could have told it wasn’t a real one. “I’m knackered, so I’ll just skip dinner and go to sleep early. See you guys tomorrow.”

Napoleon walks away quickly after that, leaving his friends confused. Illya meets Gaby’s eye with a quirk of his eyebrow.

“Knackered?” Gaby repeated with a small frown. “Well that was strange.”

“Do you think he’s alright?” Illya questions. He doesn’t think about why he feels so worried over something so small, doesn’t know why there’s an urge to follow Napoleon just to make sure he’s really alright.

Gaby purses her lips before sighing. “He’ll be fine. He’s Napoleon; probably thought we hadn’t paid him enough attention or something. I’ll see you at dinner, okay?”

He nods, but he doesn’t go to dinner that night. Instead he sneaks into the kitchens at two am, tickling the pear the way Cowboy taught him to, and was greeted with the sight of Napoleon devouring a chicken leg in his pajamas. “Cowboy?”

Napoleon drops his chicken to his plate in surprise. “Peril!”

There’s grease at the sides of his mouth, and his fingers are all dirty with oil and gravy. Illya has never seen the American look so disheveled. Even his jet black hair is in wisps of curls at the top of his head, a vision Illya decides to tuck back into his pocket for unknown reasons. “Why are you eating chicken at two am in the morning, Cowboy?”

“I skipped dinner,” Napoleon tells him. “Woke up hungry, so…”

Illya rolls his eyes, but there’s a tug at his lips, a beginning of a smile. “If Gaby even finds out about this, you won’t hear the end of it.”

Napoleon gulps at his goblet before wiping his mouth and hands with a table napkin and looking at him. His blue eyes seem bluer in the dim kitchen lights, but that’s insignificant. “Illya, do you like Gaby?”

“Of course,” he answers unblinkingly. “She’s a very good friend.”

The American scoffs as if offended. “No, I mean do you like _like_ her? Do you I-like-her-so-much-I’m-going-to-ask-her-to-Hogsmeade like her?”

His fists clench involuntarily though he doesn’t answer right away. He feels like maybe he _does_ like the little chop shop girl, if only for the fact that she makes him laugh unabashedly. Gaby is easy to talk to–certainly easier than Napoleon, who would invoke all kinds of twisting in his stomach at the mere mention of his name. Illya lets himself to think of holding Gaby’s hand, of strolling through Hogsmeade together not unlike what they already do in Hogwarts’ halls, and he feels a smile take place in his face. “Maybe I do like her, Cowboy.”

Napoleon smiles, and then he leaves. He doesn’t talk to Illya for two weeks.

“I just want to know what happened,” Gaby groans, trailing behind Illya as he enters yet another shop on the hunt for more chocolate. “Did you do something?”

He feels his fingers twitch. “I don’t know.”

“Well _think_ , Illya,” Gaby grounds out. “He talks perfectly normal to me, but you he just ignores like you’ve got the plague or something.”

Illya doesn’t want to think, though. If he does, he’ll feel the already pressing weight in his chest at the absence of the American. He’ll feel the pinch in his heart whenever he has a rather stoic remark that only Napoleon would find funny and turn to find no one there. No, he’d rather not think at all, not when his thoughts are filled with self-blame and questions and confusion and ‘ _you did this. You ruin everything’s.’_

“Besides, I know you didn’t ask me here because you liked me,” Gaby continued, making Illya halt in his footsteps.

“Gaby,” he says to call her attention. With less than a feet between them, chop shop girl has to crane her neck to look at him properly in the eye. It’s one of the many endearing things about her, Illya thinks. “I do like you.”

Silence. And then Gaby snorts, because of course she does. “Illya, what?”

“I asked you to Hogsmeade because I like you, chop shop girl. We held hands and went around the shops. I thought that was clear.”

Gaby frowns. “Yeah, but we already always do that. I didn’t think…”

“Napoleon even knew about it. It was the last thing we spoke of before he started ignoring me.” He grumbles out the last part.

They were quiet for a few seconds, before Gaby snorted yet again. “Oh Illya. You don’t like me.”

“Gaby–“

“Illya, have you ever even thought about, I don’t know, snogging me? Or grabbing my bum?”

His eyes widens at the scandalous words. “Gaby–!”

“Have you ever thought about doing things with me beyond holding hands and shopping?”

“Well, no, but–“

“Illya, you don’t like me.” She says with finality. Illya’s surprised to find that he really didn’t care at all about Gaby’s outright rejection. Instead there’s a sense of relief there somewhere, buried under all the confusion and frustration. “You’re probably just projecting, what with Napoleon ignoring you and all.”

“I don’t know what you are talking about,” He insists, already moving to the next shop that sells sweets. “I’m not projecting.”

Gaby sighs and hooks her arm around his. “It’s okay to be confused, Illya. We’re fourteen; we’re not exactly ready for relationships anyways. Want to go buy butterbeer before going on a hunt for more chocolate truffles?”

He nods and lets her drag him to The Three Broomsticks, confession already forgotten.

Gaby lasts about two more days before interfering. She did so in this way: Illya gets a note about meeting Gaby in a random classroom near the astronomy tower, which already should have seemed weird in of itself because Gaby almost absolutely never leaves notes. He goes, anyway, because the note seemed urgent and he didn’t want to leave his friend waiting. The minute he steps inside the room, the door clicks behind him and he trips on a stray quill at the same time, and that was all before he notices Napoleon’s stiff figure sitting atop the teacher’s table.

“What are you doing here?” He asks, wincing immediately afterwards at the accusing tone of his voice. Napoleon merely raises a piece of parchment in the air, the same note Gaby had given him, and it didn’t take long for Illya to put the pieces together. “She set us up.”

Napoleon grins bitterly. “Next time, tell your girlfriend to mind her own business.”

“She’s not my girlfriend,” Illya grumbles before continuing. “But even if she wasn’t, you shouldn’t speak of her like that. She’s your friend, too, Cowboy.”

“Do not call me that,” Napoleon glares at him, blue eyes like daggers slicing through his paper heart. It shouldn’t feel this way, he thinks. It certainly shouldn’t hurt this way.

Illya sighs, suddenly feeling drained. He drops to one of the chairs nearby and rests his face against both hands. “Did I do something? Just tell me what I did so I can make it right.”

Napoleon stays silent, and they let the quiet drag on for a few minutes.

“You were the first person to ever want to be my friend, you know.” Illya decides to say. He could see Napoleon tense up at his words from the corner of his eye but that didn’t stop him. “Especially after what happened with my father.”

“Illya–“

“You don’t have to deny it, Napoleon. I know almost everyone knows by now. But that’s besides the point. Everyone steered clear of me. They didn’t want to be associated with the son of the Dark Lord’s right-hand man. Everyone but you.”

“Not–“

Illya clenches his fists at his side. “So if I did something…please tell me. Please let me make it right, because I don’t want to lose you, Cowboy.”

He hears Napoleon expel a deep breath, and he feels his arms around him before he sees the American get up from where he sat.

“Merlin, I’m so sorry, Illya,” Napoleon murmurs against his head. “I’m an idiot. You didn’t do anything, it was all me.”

They pull away, an obvious question written in Illya’s eyes.

Napoleon huffs. “I guess I got jealous,” he spoke as if the words pained him. “I saw you getting close with Gaby and I got jealous because for some twisted reason I want you all to myself. We were friends first. And now you like someone, and that someone also happens to be my friend. It’s stupid. I guess I thought I was losing you both.”

“It’s not stupid, Cowboy.” Illya shakes his head. “But you don’t have anything to worry about. Gaby and I…are not like that. I was mistaken. And confused.”

Napoleon nods. “It’s okay to be confused.” He repeated Gaby’s words, as if some kind of a sign.

“I know, Cowboy.” Illya answers instead, ignoring the insistent twist to his stomach that’s always present with Napoleon around. “I know.”

“Merlin, Peril, please never stop calling me that.” Napoleon sighs, making Illya huff a laugh.

“We’ll see.”

Gaby awaits them outside the classroom with a smirk on her face, and immediately hooked her arm around both of them the second they got close. Illya ponders over the heat of Napoleon’s arms around him when he hugged him, ponders over the pounding of his heart and the relief in his bones with the knowledge that they’re okay. Ultimately, Illya wonders if he had asked the wrong person to Hogsmeade, but these are thoughts that he promises would never leave the secure walls of his mind.

Year 4:

Gryffindor crushes Slytherin on their first Quidditch game for the school year (Illya had enjoyed bragging about it in Napoleon’s face if only to see the pout of his lips whenever he does), and it’s about three days after that Napoleon stumbles into the library red-faced and flustered.

“Are you alright?” Gaby asks the American, beating Illya to it. “You look drunk on firewhiskey or something.”

Napoleon’s face lights up. “Am I alright? Of course I’m not alright, I just met the most gorgeous girl I’ve ever seen and I’m taking her out this weekend.”

Illya freezes mid-writing on his Potions essay, instantly tucking his hands inside his robes to hide their trembles. “What?”

“Raven. She’s a year six transferee from America. Peril, she’s beautiful. I’d introduce you but I’m afraid you might steal her away.”

Illya hisses out “I will not steal her away” the same time Gaby says “What would a year six lass want to do with a fourth year?”

“I don’t know,” Napoleon admits with a shrug of his shoulder. “But I have a date to plan. Wish me luck.”

They see the infamous year six girl three days later, entering the great hall hand in hand with the American. She has brown hair and green eyes, blue house tie sitting perfectly around her neck. Napoleon looks too smugly walking next to her, shooting Illya a wink when they passed by the Gryffindor table. Illya meets Gaby’s eyes across the room in the Slytherin table, the German girl making comical and mocking facial expressions at him. Illya waits for the wave of amusement, or even the fondness at her silly antics. It doesn’t come.

He spends the entire week feeling like a stalker. He sees Napoleon and his girlfriend everywhere, it seems. He and Gaby walk the halls alone now, with Napoleon trailing behind them beside Raven. The worst part is he can’t even talk about it with Gaby, because Napoleon is always there. Illya would think he would feel relieved that the American didn’t seem to want to abandon his friends for a girl, but sometimes it’s more overbearing to see them than not at all.

He can’t understand why there’s a spark of pain in his chest whenever he sees them, can’t bring himself to even think about it, because he just can’t. He’s self-aware enough to note that there’s longing there somewhere, mixed with frustration and confusion and want. He doesn’t need to find out what that entails, though. Not when he already has a clue. Not when the moment he recognizes it, it becomes true. Not when that truth could very well mean the end for things he’s not ready to let go of just yet.

Finally the next Hogsmeade weekend, Illya finds Gaby alone, sitting on the grass by the black lake. She’s wearing muggle clothing, hands covered in grease and filth as she fiddles with something metallic that Illya couldn’t name. He drops unceremoniously next to her, the German girl only huffing a breath in acknowledgement. They sit there under the shade of a tree for a few minutes, Illya eyeing the environment and particularly distracted by a blue butterfly that reminded him of the shade of Napoleon’s eyes and Gaby playing with her toy (whatever it is). After a few seconds, Illya speaks up. “What is that?”

Gaby snorts the way she always does, but she doesn’t stop her hands from working. “Sure, let’s pretend that’s why you’re here. Anyways, this is a music box.”

“And that is…?”

The chop shop girl rolls her eyes, but Illya knows she wasn’t really annoyed with him. She enjoys their little talks, Gaby, although she likes to pretend otherwise. “ _Purebloods_. You’ll find out once I fix it, of course.”

“Why not just tell me now?”

“Stop being stubborn and hand me that screwdriver, will you?” Gaby tells him. “Napoleon’s rubbed off on you. _Merlin_.”

Illya does as he’s told. With the silence apart from the sound of Gaby tinkering away at his side, he wishes he brought a book or something with him to read, perhaps even get started on an essay he has to do for a class. He’s learned by now that the quiet is deceiving, and if Illya has realized something over the past couple years, it’s that he cannot afford to be deceived.

Gaby drops her tools by her side with a small sigh. “Just let it out, Kuryakin. I know you want to talk about something.”

“I know you know what it is already,” he mutters back, leaning against the tree. He feels the barks rub uncomfortably against his skin through his turtleneck sweater, but for some reason he can’t bring himself to mind. It’s enough to distract him from the quiet, at least.

“It bothers me, too, if that makes you feel any better,” Gaby supplies as she packs up the rest of her things. She sits closer to Illya once she’s done, leaning against his shoulder instead. “Although not for the same reasons, I think.”

Illya sighs. “And why is that?”

“It just seems weird to me that a sixth year would even waste time on someone like Napoleon,” Gaby shrugs. “Don’t get me wrong, I know our friend’s pretty and all but he’s still fourteen to that girl’s seventeen. It’s weird. Besides, plenty of prettier girls have taken interest in Napoleon. I’ve never seen him react like this towards them.”

“I don’t even know why I’m bothered,” Illya tastes the lie on his tongue before he even says it.

Gaby’s raised eyebrow is all he needs to know that the German was not convinced. “Want me to tell you why?”

“No, because the things that brain of yours could come up with scare me sometimes.” He chuckles, his words making the chop shop girl roll her eyes.

“Tell you what,” Gaby starts, standing up and dusting her hands on her jeans before lifting the music box up. “I’m going to go and finish fixing this in my dorm. You’ll find Napoleon–hopefully alone–in Slughorn’s classroom.”

A question forms on Illya’s mouth, but Gaby beats him to it by adding, “Oh, and do me a favor? Talk to him? And maybe you’ll find out why you’re so bothered by his girlfriend.”

Gaby leaves with a wink, practically skipping away from him. Illya contemplates for a little while whether seeing Napoleon would be a good thing at this time, but in the end he decides he misses his friend above all things, and walks the way to Slughorn’s classroom, feet dragging behind with every step.

“Peril,” Napoleon greets him in surprise the second he steps into the otherwise empty classroom. Sweat dripped from his forehead and there are rubber gloves on his hands.

Illya frowns at the unusual sight. “What are you doing, Cowboy?”

“Cleaning,” Napoleon sighs before wiping at his brow with his free arm. “Slughorn caught Raven and I snogging in a broom closet and decided this is the best punishment.”

_Oh_ , Illya says mentally. There it is again, the spike of pain in his chest and the constriction around his throat. He can’t even bring himself to imagine the sight of Napoleon kissing his girlfriend, because if he tries the pain becomes overbearing, and he can’t shake the feeling that he’s losing him. So Illya fakes a laugh instead, hands fisted and trembling inside his robes. “Where’s Raven, then? How come it’s just you?”

“For some reason she got off pretty lightly,” Cowboy pouts. “I’m stuck cleaning and encountering Merlin-knows-how-old stains here and she just bats her eye and Slughorn forgives her.”

“Sounds like quite the girl,” Illya mutters, although Napoleon didn’t acknowledge the bitterness in his tone.

Instead, the American grins, wider than Illya’s seen him do before. “She is.”

This time he fails to contain his sharp breath, but Napoleon continues, not paying him enough attention to notice.

“I sometimes feel like she isn’t real, you know?” He says. “I’ve never felt so deeply about someone else before, and after such little time of knowing her, too.”

Illya swallows a knot in his throat. He tries to ignore the pounding he feels, the drop to his stomach, but he can’t, not anymore, because it _hurts_ –so badly he feels like he won’t be able to take it. He’s been through more pain than the average person, he knows, but somehow this feels like he’s a little boy back in Moscow again, unable to properly comprehend the situation but could recognize the unbidden pain, and hurt, and more pain. Somehow this feels worse.

“Illya,” he starts at the sound of his name, because Napoleon almost never calls him that anymore. “I think I’m falling in lo–“

“–I have to go,” Illya says suddenly, and before Napoleon could say another word, he’s gone, with only the sound of his footsteps getting further and further away as remnant that he was even ever there in the first place.

-

He can’t control the tears, and he hates himself for it. They fall traitorously down his flushed cheeks, cold against the autumn winds as he races to the Slytherin dormitory. His fingers are trembling violently the way it’s never done before, so he keeps them tucked inside his pockets and hidden from sight. He knocks insistently once he reaches the door, not caring if the wood splinters his knuckles. In fact, it would be a welcomed pain. Maybe it would distract him from the turmoil growing inside him and ready to burst out any minute. A first year student opens the door, and he barely has the time to gasp out “Gaby, I need Gaby,” before he’s drowning in tears again.

He rests both hands on his knees, crouched low by the door, and tries to regain control over his breathing. He doesn’t succeed much, and this is how Gaby finds him: a pathetic, crying mess on the floor.

“Merlin, Illya,” he hears her gasp before he’s flooded with her scent, flowers and fruits and grease, and then he feels her arms wrap around him, a safe blanket against the unsafe world. They sink completely to the floor, Illya shaking and crying and Gaby confused and scared. “What the bloody hell happened?”

Illya shakes his head and tries to come up with a coherent sentence but couldn’t, so he just says “Gaby,” again brokenly.

“Illya, please talk to me,” he hears the hitch in the chop shop girl’s voice, hears the tremors she tries to hide. “You’re scaring me here.”

Taking a deep breath, he manages a few words, if only to console his friend. “I _love_ him.”

Admitting it now feels a little bit anticlimactic, and only because it feels like it should have been the most obvious thing in the world: Napoleon is American. Gaby likes to tinker. Illya loves Napoleon. It doesn’t feel like some kind of big revelation now that it’s out. It just feels pathetic, given their circumstance, but also inevitable, because Illya knows he still can’t have nice things. He knows he’s still only meant to be hurt in this world.

“I’m scared,” he continues through his tears. “Gaby, I’m scared.”

“Oh, Illya,” Gaby says, grip tightening around him, tears leaking out of her eyes as well. “I know you are, love, I know you are. But I’m here, okay? I’m right here. You don’t have to be scared.”

They stay seated on the floor like that, rocking gently until Illya feels too tired to cry. Gaby never loosens her grip on him. After a while, she speaks up. “Does he know?”

Illya shakes his head.

“What triggered this, then? Did something happen?”

He takes a deep breath. “We were talking. And then he started speaking about her. He almost told me that he…that he’s falling in love with her. But I left before he could.”

“Oh, Illya,” Gaby repeats, leaning her head on top of his. Despite himself, the tears come back, but not as brutally as before.

“I’m familiar with pain,” he tells her, trying to dismiss her pity. Inside he’s screaming, sobbing, because love is a curse. “I’ll get familiar with this, too. Don’t worry about me, chop shop girl.”

Before Gaby could respond, Napoleon suddenly appears, face dropping at the sight of Illya obviously having been crying.

“Peril?” He starts, heading towards them. Illya and Gaby both stand up from the floor, the girl staying quiet as Illya tries to pull himself together. “What’s going on?”

Gaby sighs. “Napoleon–“

“Did someone _hurt_ you?” He growls out, eyes flashing dangerously, scanning Illya’s red and blotched face for signs of harm. “Who hurt you? Peril, I swear to Merlin–“

“I’m okay, Cowboy,” Illya cuts him off for the second time that day, finding enough strength to put a hand on Napoleon’s shoulder to calm him down. The American rests his hand on top on Illya’s as well, a worried look still marring his face. Illya sees Gaby and him exchange a look, and he has to fight back a fond roll of his eyes. “I am serious. You both worry too much. I will be fine.”

Napoleon turns to him completely. “Illya, you know you can talk to us, right? I’ll always be here for you. Please tell me if something’s wrong. I swear I’ll drop everything, just...”

“I know, Cowboy,” he mumbles back. It’s not fair, he thinks, how easily Napoleon sinks his arm right through Illya’s chest and grips his heart without even knowing it. “You know me. You know what I’ve been through. This just happens sometimes.”

The lie tastes bitter in his mouth, but it does its job, because Napoleon relaxes ever so slightly, forehead no longer creased in worry, and Illya already feels lighter seeing him be all right. It’s unfair, he repeats in his head, how even at his lowest he still thinks of Napoleon first before himself–unfair and dangerous. But he can’t do anything about it. Not anymore.

“Do you want to sneak into the kitchens and eat éclairs with me? I know you love those.” Napoleon suggests, and Illya never stood a chance, did he?

“Okay, Cowboy,” he says instead, and tries to calm the harsh beating of his heart. Napoleon grins at him, though, all bright and American and _Napoleon_ , and his heart roars. Gaby lets them go, watching them walk away with a fond yet tired look in her eyes, because _if only they knew_.

Year 5:

Illya’s in the middle of trying to keep a textbook required for his OWLs from biting him when Napoleon appears next to him, slamming his things to the table. Madame Pince shushes them, but the Russian’s too occupied with looking concernedly at Cowboy who has his face buried in his hands.

“You okay, Cowboy?” He asks tentatively, piling all his other books on top of the monstrous one in hopes of taming it.

Napoleon sighs heavily before looking at him. “Have you talked to Gaby recently?”

“Not since breakfast, no.” He replies with a frown. “Is something wrong?”

“Let’s go to the pitch. I could use a practice with my diving.” Napoleon tells him instead, already packing up Illya’s things for him. “Come on.”

The Quidditch pitch is empty apart from a class of first years learning how to summon a broom to their hands on the other side. Illya grips his burrowed broom tightly, ascending slowly to the air and watching Napoleon race around with a glare.

“Alright,” he says as Napoleon flies by him for the fifth time in three minutes. “Talk to me, Cowboy.”

The American halts a few feet away, and Illya tries not to stare at the way his neck glistens with sweat under the September sun, or the way the fabric of his shirt stretches across his broad shoulders. “Gaby stole the chocolates Raven gave to me this morning.”

The sound of his Cowboy’s girlfriend’s name is enough to get Illya back to earth, and he finds himself pursing his lips and drawling out, “Is that what’s made you get this uneasy? Because you didn’t get to have your morning sweets?”

“Gaby ate them and now she’s in love with my girlfriend,” Napoleon barks, effectively shutting Illya up. They descend harshly, knees almost giving up when they land.

“I don’t get it,” Illya replies dumbly.

Napoleon clenches his eyes shut, breathing heavily. Illya ignores the urge to wrap him up in his arms and keep him safe from the dangers of the world. “I think…I think she’s been fooling me. All this fucking time, Peril.”

“Are you saying…”

“The first time I met her, she bumped into me, spilled pumpkin juice down my robes and all, and offered me chocolate to make up for it. I told her how incredible it tasted, and now she gives them to me almost every fucking week.”

Illya blinks. “Are you sure–“

“–And now Gaby ate some and somehow she’s in love with Raven? That’s not a fucking coincidence.” Napoleon continues to rant, expression growing more horrified by the second. “I should have fucking known. I knew our personalities weren’t compatible, I knew there was something missing there, but I felt like I couldn’t pull away. Every time I get close, I get another fucking chocolate and I just can’t.”

Illya lets the words roll around his head, lets him have a moment to process what he’s been told, hands clenching and trembling and jaw tight. Finally, when he’s done trying to steady his breaths and not explode in anger, he says, “I’m going to curse her. I’m going to make it hurt.”

“Peril–“

“But first we get Gaby,” He tells his Cowboy. “We go to Slughorn and get you both fixed. And then I’m going to talk to Raven.”

-

“It doesn’t make sense, though,” Gaby grumbles from where she’s lying in the Slytherin common house. She’s rubbing at her temples, face screwed up in discomfort after drinking Slughorn’s potion. “When I ate the chocolates or love potion or whatever, I acted really silly and in love. With Napoleon, we only ever really saw him like that, like, I don’t know, once?”

“Twice,” Illya speaks up, making both Gaby and Napoleon look at him. He’s sitting with his back to them, staring into the fireplace, hands still in fists. It’s not the first time they’ve sneaked him into the Slytherin common room, but it’s the first time he’s itching to get out. He can’t keep his mind off of how someone manipulated and took advantage of both his friends–his Napoleon–and he’s somewhere else sitting and not doing anything about it. The need to just _do_ _something_ is killing him. “The first time Cowboy met her and that time in Slughorn’s classroom, when he told me…”

Napoleon exhales. “I told you that I’m falling in love with her. Well, I almost did, before you left.”

“Okay, but that still doesn’t explain anything,” Gaby says.

“Well, I know for a fact that both those times, she gave me chocolates.” The American confirms. “But she didn’t do it everyday. I don’t get it.”

Illya turns to stare at him. “How about now?”

“What do you mean?”

“Do you feel that way about her now?”

Gaby clears her throat, and Illya sends her a look.

“Before Slughorn’s potion, probably, yes,” Napoleon answers honestly. “Although now that I think about it, it’s been wearing off lately. Maybe.”

Illya stands suddenly, and it could be his imagination, but the flames in the fire place flickers as he clenches his jaw. “I cannot sit here, doing nothing, while that _witch_ gets away with taking advantage of you.”

“Illya,” Napoleon says his name like a plea, or maybe a cry for help, just as Gaby tells him, “Calm down, Kuryakin.”

“Do not tell me to calm down!” He hisses, bares his teeth, lets the monster out, accent thicker with rage. “How are you okay with this? How are you both okay with this? She’s been practically _raping_ you for months–“

“Do you think I don’t know that?” Napoleon snaps, kicking at the coffee table that’s separating them. “Do you think I don’t feel _disgusted_ with myself? Do you think I don’t feel like throwing up when I–“ He falters, voice breaking, and Illya feels like killing himself a little, because he wasn’t supposed to make Napoleon feel more hurt by this, he was supposed to make him feel better.

Gaby stands up, wobbling slightly, and reaches a tentative hand on Napoleon’s shoulder. “Napoleon, you didn’t–nothing happened, right?”

“We met over the summer,” Napoleon sighs, the fight leaving his tone. Illya braces himself for his next words, because this is not about him–it never was. It’s about the boy he’s in love with, but that doesn’t mean anything. “I was supposed to introduce her to my parents, but she told me she wasn’t ready. So I met her at an Inn in Diagon Alley.”

“Napoleon,” Gaby whispers in horror, tears already lining her eyes. “Merlin, we have to report this. We have to. This could get her to Azkaban.”

Illya could very well collapse–he could feel it in his knees, in the tremor in his body, in the shortness of his breath. He doesn’t want to process Napoleon’s words, doesn’t want to allow it entrance to his brain, because he _can’t_. He can’t fathom how they will move on from this, he doesn’t know how he can help Napoleon, he doesn’t know what to do to make it okay. He’s been wanting to protect Napoleon from the world ever since that day in flying class when he saw the fear in the American’s eyes and he called him ‘Cowboy,’ and he _failed_. Miserably. Dangerously. And Illya is fucking useless.

But this is not about him, he reminds himself. So he stands his ground, he doesn’t collapse, because Napoleon needs him to be strong. No one’s ever needed him before, but he will make sure that he will be the strongest that his Cowboy will ever need.

“What do you want me to do?” Illya whispers. He’s not sure anyone even hears him, because his voice is the smallest it’s ever been, smaller than when he had to introduce himself to his house knowing that they already knew who he was ( _Kuryakin_ : son of the traitor, son of the Dark Lord’s right-hand man), smaller than when he called out for his mother as aurors knocked down the front door of their little house and arrested his father. “Please tell what I can do, Cowboy.”

Napoleon’s chin trembles–no tears leave his eyes but Illya can see them welling up, a dam ready to burst at any minute, or an ocean pulling back from the shore before a tsunami. “I don’t know.”

“Hey,” Gaby suddenly says. “You know that Hufflepuff kid that’s always asleep every bloody time?”

Illya and Napoleon don’t respond; only look at chop shop girl in question.

“He’s known for sneaking in firewhiskey,” she continues before nodding to herself. “I’m going to go get some.”

“Why,” Illya says, but it doesn’t sound like a question.

Gaby heaves a breath. “Because, Kuryakin, we’re going to get pissed. And then tomorrow, hopefully, Raven’s going to wake up with green skin and no hair on her head.”

Illya doesn’t protest. Neither does Napoleon.

They end up pissed drunk four hours later, stumbling through the halls and avoiding the prefects roaming around, ready to give sanctions to students out of bed past curfew. They trip their way towards the kitchens where they eat chicken soup and drink more alcohol, and Illya knows he’ll probably regret the combination in the morning, and this is probably an unhealthy way of coping for Napoleon, but Cowboy is smiling and he’s letting off steam and cursing Raven’s name, so Illya gives them this moment. Tomorrow they’ll make healthier decisions, he promises himself. Tonight, he just gives to them.

They go directly to Dumbledore the next day. They find out that apart from brewing love potions, Raven is also half veela. She doesn’t wake up with green skin and no hair, but she gets expelled the day after. Napoleon goes to Dumbledore’s office every other day for therapy. Gaby fixes her music box and gives it to Illya. Illya’s still in love with Napoleon, so he thinks of the American whenever he turns the music box to hear the intimate tune. They get by.

Year 6:

Illya comes out to Napoleon one morning in the Quidditch pitch, right before taking off for a practice match, because he feels like it’s time to get around to accepting himself. He doesn’t look at him in the eye when he does, afraid of the judgment and the disgust that would surely coat Cowboy’s eyes. Napoleon, though, lifts his chin by his thumb and smiles really softly at him, and Illya’s heart constricts a little.

“I’m proud of you,” he tells him, sincerely, genuinely, before tugging him into a tight hug. “I’m so proud of you, Peril. I wish I could be as strong. I’m so proud of you.”

His words make little sense to Illya until about four days later, when someone bumps into Illya in the great hall and coughs out, “Fag.”

He freezes up, because he doesn’t know how else to react, and he’s ready to leave because it’s hard to breathe suddenly, but Napoleon also halts next to him. Illya barely registers Napoleon hissing out “What did you just say?” before Cowboy’s fist comes flying straight towards the arse’s face.

Blood pours out from his nose, and professors are onto them in what seems like seconds. Even Dumbledore stands up from his seat, although he doesn’t approach them. Illya remains standing, frozen, shaking. Napoleon gets held back by random seventh years while the professors tell them off, wands at the ready.

“What is happening here?” Professor Waverly demands, reaching two hands out as if he’s trying to tame two wild beasts. Gaby appears from behind Illya, clutching at his arms with confused eyes.

Napoleon snarls, American accent thick and distinct. “That _asshole_ just used a derogatory slur and he _deserved_ worse.”

“Calm down, Mr. Solo. And you,” Professor Waverly points to the perpetrator. “We’ll have a talk in my office with your head of house about _respect_. Now go back to your house tables, all of you.”

“What, he gets told off and that’s just it?” Napoleon raises his voice, making almost everyone in the hall silent. Gaby calls Napoleon’s name but the American shakes his head, determined. “You don’t get to do that. You don’t get to use our _sexuality_ against us like it’s some kind of disease. No one should get to do that.”

Illya finds it hard to breathe. Everyone’s gone silent, some with their mouths open and others borderline gasping. Napoleon’s chest heaves with every breath, face red and jaw clenched tight. Illya feels his heart flutter.

“Yes, you heard me,” he continues, hissing. “So if you don’t have anything nice to say, shut your fucking mouth, or my wand will do it for you.”

“I second that,” Gaby adds with a challenging glint in her eye. The crowd erupts, and Illya wants to run out, he wants to hug his friends and bury his head on the crook of Napoleon’s head, he wants to cry. He’s never felt this validated before. He’s never felt such hope before.

And Merlin did he hope. He feels it spreading through his veins, this revelation, this sudden slimmer of chance. He’s never considered it possible before, never even entertained the idea that Napoleon could feel the same. His preference shouldn’t even matter, Illya thinks, because that’s certainly not enough to guarantee that he could be in love with Illya as well. But _Merlin_ did he hope.

He tries to tell himself that this is getting too dangerous, once he’s sitting awake in his bed, roommates snoring to his left. He tries to remind himself that this kind of hope will kill him, will destroy him, because love is a curse. But he dreams of Napoleon’s eyes crinkling with laughter, the soft pink of his lips, the feel of them against his own, and then he thinks he’d gladly be destroyed.

Year seven:

Napoleon decides he wants to be an auror a week into the school year when they’re choosing their NEWT subjects, and Illya feels himself panic a little. The sound of wizards apparating outside his house and hexing their way inside is still resonant in his ears, and sometimes he thinks he hears them in the silence. He never forgets.

He doesn’t know what he wants to be, yet, so he just picks all the subjects that seem necessary in any field and goes with it. Gaby says she wants to be a mechanic. She’s fixed five more music boxes and split them between the three of them.

They help Napoleon study for Defense Against the Dark Arts, and they’ve been by the black lake practicing the Patronus spell for the past three hours. Illya doesn’t even attempt to do it. He knows he lacks happy memories, despite the flashes of Napoleon’s smile and the twist he gets in his stomach whenever their skins brush in the barest of touch.

“ _Expecto patronum!_ ” Napoleon recites once again to no avail. Sweat is dripping from his eyebrows down to the sides of his face like tears. Gaby has given up a long time ago, opting to sit in the grass and work on the snitch she’s decided to create after an argument with Illya about Quidditch. “Fuck!”

Napoleon drops to the ground, wand rolling away from his tired hands. Illya watches with a quirk to his lips, but he doesn’t say anything. He could feel the frustration coming in waves from his Cowboy, and he decides pretty early on that he doesn’t want to add to that.

Gaby rolls her eyes at Napoleon, though, and chides him. “What memory have you been thinking of for the past hours?” Before Napoleon could answer, she continues. “Because it’s clearly not been working.”

“I don’t know what else to think of!” Cowboy complains, throwing his head back. “I need happier memories–better than the first time I caught the snitch, anyway.”

Gaby snorts at his words. “Of course that wouldn’t work. You told me that the first time you caught the snitch you were too worried about Illya falling from forty feet in the air.”

“Yeah, that can’t be considered a happy memory,” Napoleon mumbles, much to their amusement.

“Think more personal,” Gaby suggests. “Think the power of love or friendship or family or some other shit.”

Illya snorts. “Just think of those hair potions you like to drown your hair in. I’m sure they’ll work just fine, Cowboy.”

“I’ll just think of you,” Napoleon retorts sarcastically, but it makes Illya’s breath catch in his throat anyway. “I’m sure my memories of you are all butterflies and rainbows.”

Illya pulls some tweed from the ground and throws it at Napoleon’s head, but otherwise stays silent.

Napoleon stands with a huff and grabs his wand. He takes a long look at Illya, long enough to make the tips of his ears start to darken with color and his heart to start pounding, long enough for Illya to feel the familiar tendrils of hope clutch at his entire being. And then Napoleon closes his eyes. “Expecto patronum!”

Blue mist start to spill from the tip of his wand, a steady stream that quickly turns into an outpour until it forms into something more, something concrete, turns into a solid form, and then Illya laughs out loud, recognizing the shape.

“A stallion,” he chuckles in both wonder and amusement. “Fitting. You truly are a Cowboy.”

Napoleon laughs along with him, blue eyes alight with happiness and pride. “I can’t even find it in myself to be annoyed.”

“What memory did you think of?” Illya asks. He sees Napoleon tense up, grip his wand tighter, and hears Gaby snort behind them.

“I’m going to go and fix…things,” Gaby tells them before scurrying off, leaving Napoleon and Illya alone, but not before winking suggestively at Illya.

Napoleon smiles at him, and Illya feels everything in his whole body, then, from the very first strange beat of his heart the day he met Napoleon, to the twist in his stomach that became almost normal over the past years. He feels the dread and jealousy and worry and hurt; those first strings of hope that he didn’t allow to foster when Napoleon sat with him on the Hogwarts Express in second year, the annoyance he directed at Gaby for becoming close with the American. He feels the thud in his chest the first time Napoleon smiled at him, right after he first called him ‘Cowboy,’ and feels the flutter he felt when Napoleon called him ‘Peril.’ He feels everything, like they’re the blood flowing in his veins, like every thoughts he tries to tuck away washing over him in a tsunami of memories.

“You remember that one time in third year,” Napoleon started. “I was ignoring you for the stupidest of reasons, and Gaby set us up.”

Illya’s heart shudders, but he manages a nod. He lets himself be consumed by the feeling, by the scent of Napoleon’s cologne and hair potion. He lets himself play with the idea that maybe he can have nice things, after all. Maybe he could hope and not be destroyed by it. Maybe he can love, and be loved back. Maybe he is more than his father’s son.

“You told me that you didn’t want to lose me,” Napoleon reminds him, voice no louder than a whisper. He inches closer to where Illya is standing. “I remember hugging you. It’s the closest we’ve ever been at that point, and I could smell your shampoo, could tell the brand you used, even.”

Illya breathes shakily. “Cowboy–“

“I was so afraid you would hear how fast my heart had been beating,” Napoleon chuckles, shaking his head at himself. “So afraid. Or that maybe you’d figure out that the reason I ignored you wasn’t because I felt like I was losing you and Gaby. It’s because I felt like I was losing you. Just you.”

“Napoleon–“

“Don’t _call_ me that,” Napoleon sighs, leaning closer and closer until there’s only centimeters between them– _it’s still not close enough_ , Illya thinks to himself. “You going to say something, Peril?”

His chest heaves with every broken breath. This doesn’t feel real, doesn’t make sense to him, because does he deserve this? Does he deserve Napoleon? For years, he’s learned to live with the fact that he’d probably stay a friend to the American forever. This probably won’t ever happen. But now that it’s here, now that he feels Napoleon’s breath brushing his face in small huffs, now that he’s right in front of Illya, close enough to touch but never quite _close enough_ –does he deserve this?

Napoleon stares at him, waiting, hoping, and the look in his eyes, the adoration, the intimacy that Illya knows mirrors his own–they make the decision for him.

“ _Americans_ ,” He huffs. His voice is shaky and his accent thicker, but he doesn’t care. Illya thinks Napoleon doesn’t, either. “You make everything more dramatic.”

And then he kisses him, warm lips onto warmer ones joined in a searing meeting. Napoleon gasps into his mouth, breathes into him, and Illya barely stops himself from melting. They grip each other, as tight as their bodies would allow, and Illya feels something click into place inside his heart.

“Cowboy,” he whispers.

“Peril.” Napoleon laughs wetly, tracing a finger down the slope of Illya’s nose in disbelief before brushing their lips together once more. “This definitely beats that happy memory.”

Illya pulls back just to stare at his reflection through Napoleon’s eyes _. This_ , he thinks. _This is enough_. “Good.”

They go back to the castle hand in hand. Gaby is waiting for them in the hallway leading to the Slytherin common room with a proud smile on her face. Napoleon nudges her with a small chuckle. Illya rolls his eyes, but extends his free arm to pull her closer. They walk the rest of the way with their arms hooked around each other, Illya in the middle this time. The next day, Illya produces his own patronus. It’s enough.

**Author's Note:**

> because every fandom needs hogwarts aus.


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